peachy

Yes. Make sure you have at least two nics. When you configure TCP/IP for either card the Use IP Routing check box becomes clickable. Here's a brief how-to: http://www.winnetmag.com/Windows/Articles/...465/pg/2/2.html.

RIS is fairly simple to setup but you need a number of preconditions including a second partition on the server hosting RIS. You can't install RIS on a server that only has a c: partition. 1. Active Directory. It won't work without it. 2. A Microsoft DHCP server. 3. Choose a member server or the Domain Controller (Windows 2000 or Windows Server 2003) and install the Remote Installation Service. 4. Authorize the RIS server if it is not the same machine as the DHCP server. 5. Run risetup from the command line to add your first image. 6. Edit the d:\remoteinstall\setup\english\images\{os folder name]\i386\templates\ristndrd.sif file if you want to customise any settings, such as making it completely unattended. 7. Make sure your clients have a PXE boot ROM NIC or if you use the floppy disk client install disk that your clients have a network card listed in the NIC compatibility list: Go ahead and enjoy! and read up here: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechn...t/remoteos.mspx

Yes, mine is an OEM version. The only retail copy I have is the upgrade version and not the full retail one.

Considering that Iomega lost almost $20 million last year because of declining sales of Zip drives, then the writing is on the wall!

Tried your MSBATCH.INF with my product key and it still displays the User Info, EULA, and Product Key pages. I'm thinking there's something else going on here...

So, how did you manage to get past Product Key and Identification pages without having to click the "Next" button? I thought that the display of the page was by design to ensure that legitimately licensed installs were forced upon you: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?...&NoWebContent=1

This should work: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...ndpost&p=149899

heh, heh, if only things were that simple. Where I work I manage a number of labs with a multiple boot image. Currently, the image is about 20GB when compressed and would take about 40 minutes to Ghost if the Ghost Server was going at 100Mbps. However, our ITS department has decreed that all multicast ghosting sessions shall occur at 10Mbps. Which, currently for me takes about 5 1/2 hours!

Nope. For RIS the $oem$ folder is also placed alongside the i386 folder, just like in the CD unattend install. Only for a winnt32.exe network share setup do you need to put $oem$ within i386. You will need to edit your current winnt.sif file and overwrite the standard ristndrd.sif file, which is located in the ..\i386\templates folder of your RIS flat image folder structure. Use setupmgr.exe to modify the winnt.sif and resave it as ristndrd.sif. You may have to manually tweak the ristndrd.sif file to make sure the OemPreInstall=yes is set and possibly add the correct paths to your drivers in OemPnPDriversPath= line.

I have gotten the hotfixes to install using Windows 2000 RIS. In Windows Server 2003 there's usually one hotfix that fails and I don't understand why. The $oem$ directory needs to be at the same level as the i386 directory in your flat image directory structure. RunOnceEx will work as does cmdlines.txt. I have installed XP Pro and Windows 2000 Pro using this setup. The other advantage of RIS that your silent install of apps is only limited by the hard drive partition size!

Yes, on the CD its under \tools\reskit\batch. Just run the setup.exe to install. Then run batch.exe. If you want to automate a network of Windows 98 PCs with unique NetBIOS names there is an option to read a text file containing a list of host names (and you can even associate IP addresses) and create multiple msbatch.inf files.

Try this registry key: [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Streams] "Settings"=hex:08,00,00,00,04,00,00,00,01,00,00,00,00,77,7e,13,73,35,cf,11,ae,\ 69,08,00,2b,2e,12,62,04,00,00,00,01,00,00,00,43,00,00,00 Import it during the RunOnceEx phase. It seems to work for all my unattended images.

AutoPartition = 0 is sufficient. That's what's in my winnt.sif. It only reformats the c:\ and leaves the d:\ partition alone. Hmm, now that I think about it, my d:\ is on a second drive and I have some Linux partitions and free space on the drive with c:\ partition. Still, it only formats the c:\ partition and leaves the Linux partitions alone.

Better performance, traditionally. However, with full bus-mastering capabilities on the ATA controller it really doesn't make a difference in the benchmarks I've run.

Ultra DMA cables are 80 wire/40-pin flat ribbon cables and will feel stiffer then older 40 wire/4o-pin ATA cables. In order to take advantage of ATA66/100/133 speeds you need these to connect your drives. In a non-cable select configuration it doesn't matter which connector A,B,C you use, although most computer builders will plug A into the motherboard and B and C into the devices depending on where they may be located when mounted in the case. The Ultra DMA cables typically have A coloured blue, B coloured gray, and C coloured black. It is suggested, though I don't know if it really makes that much of a difference, that the blue connector connects to the motherboard, the gray to the slave drive and the black to the primary drive. I would put both hard drives on the primary channel and both optical drives on the secondary channel. By default your BIOS will boot from the primary master drive. But you can change the order in the BIOS.

Create a second partition if you don't have one already. Copy the I386 folder into a folder called windist. Then run winnt32 /unattend:[answer file] where [answer file] is your unattend setup file, e.g. unattend.txt. This will perform an upgrade install on the c:\ partition, but overwriting some files of your existing c:\windows directory, but leaving c:\Documents and Settings alone. You end up with duplicate Administrator accounts. Also, your exisiting Program Files directory is also left alone. The other alternative is to format the d:\ partition as FAT32 and run the install from a DOS boot disk. This will give you the chance to reformat the c: partition. Then run winnt /unattend:answer file

Oops, should have gone to bed instead of posting that. Wasn't reading/thinking...

Add this: [SourceDisksFiles] viasraid.sys = 1,,,,,,4_,4,1,,,1,4 viapdsk.sys = 1,,,,,,4_,4,1,,,1,4 [SCSI.Load] viasraid = viasraid.sys,4 viapdsk = viapdsk.sys,4 [SCSI] VIARAID_VT3149_XP = "VIA Serial ATA RAID Controller(Windows XP)" VIAPDSK_VT4149_XP = "VIA ATA/ATAPI Host Controller(Windows XP)" [Config.VT6420] value = "", Tag, REG_DWORD, 1 #HP-Delete following line #value = "Parameters\PnpInterface", 5, REG_DWORD, 1 Remove the scsi = VIARAID_VT3149_XP Make sure you compress viasraid.sys and viapdsk.sys and copy them to the i386 folder. The drivers directory should contain viasraid.cat, viasraid.inf, viasraid.sys, viapdsk.sys, viapdsk.cat, and viapide.inf

Your board has two sets of SATA controllers: one is the native SATA in the Southbridge of the VIA KT800 chipset. The ASUS drivers are on your CD or from the website: http://www.asus.com/support/download/selec...20d.zip~zaqwedc The other is the Promise 378: http://www.asus.com/support/download/selec...528.zip~zaqwedc You will definitely need to integrate the Promise drivers into TXTSETUP.SIF. As for the VIA ones I don't have any experience with those. This is my TXTSETUP.SIF for the Promise drivers: [SourceDisksFiles] Fasttx2k.sys = 1,,,,,,4_,4,1,,,1,4 [HardwareIdsDatabase] PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_3376 = "fasttx2k" PCI\VEN_105A&DEV_3373 = "fasttx2k" [SCSI.load] fasttx2k = Fasttx2k.sys,4 [SCSI] fasttx2k = "WinXP Promise FastTrak 376/378 (tm) Controller" [Config.fasttx2k] value = "", Tag, REG_DWORD, 1 This is the TEXTSETUP.OEM file from the DriverDisk subfolder from the driver package: # # format for txtsetup.oem. # # General format: # # [section] # key = value1,value2,... # # # The hash ('#') introduces a comment. # Strings with embedded spaces, commas, or hashes should be double-quoted # # This section lists all disks in the disk set. # # <description> is a descriptive name for a disk, used when # prompting for the disk # <tagfile> is a file whose presence allows setup to recognize # that the disk is inserted. # <directory> is where the files are located on the disk. # [Disks] d1 = "VIA ATA/ATAPI Host Controller Driver", \VT6420, \PIDE\winxp d2 = "VIA ATA/ATAPI Host Controller Driver", \VT6420, \PIDE\win2000 d3 = "VIA ATA/ATAPI Host Controller Driver", \VT6420, \PIDE\winnt40 d4 = "VIA Serial ATA RAID Controller Driver ", \VT6420, \SATA\winxp d5 = "VIA Serial ATA RAID Controller Driver ", \VT6420, \SATA\win2000 d6 = "VIA Serial ATA RAID Controller Driver ", \VT6420, \SATA\winnt40 d7 = "VIA ATA/ATAPI Host Controller Driver", \VT6420, \PIDE\2003ia32 d8 = "VIA Serial ATA RAID Controller Driver ", \VT6420, \SATA\2003ia32 # This section lists the default selection for each 'required' # hardware component. If a line is not present for a component, # the default defaults to the first item in the [<component_name>] # section (see below). # # <component_name> is one of computer, display, keyboard, mouse, scsi # <id> is a unique <within the component> string to be associated # with an option. [Defaults] scsi = VIARAID_VT3149_XP # This section lists the options available for a particular component. # # <id> is the unique string for the option # <description> is a text string, presented to the user in a menu # <key_name> gives the name of the key to be created for the component in # HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ControlSet001\Services [scsi] VIARAID_VT3149_2003IA32 = "VIA Serial ATA RAID Controller(Windows 2003 IA32)",VT6420 VIARAID_VT3149_XP = "VIA Serial ATA RAID Controller(Windows XP)",VT6420 VIARAID_VT3149_2K = "VIA Serial ATA RAID Controller(Windows 2000)",VT6420 VIARAID_VT3149_NT = "VIA Serial ATA RAID Controller(Windows NT4)",VT6420 VIAPDSK_VT4149_2003IA32 = "VIA ATA/ATAPI Host Controller(Windows 2003IA32)",VT6420 VIAPDSK_VT4149_XP = "VIA ATA/ATAPI Host Controller(Windows XP)",VT6420 VIAPDSK_VT4149_2K = "VIA ATA/ATAPI Host Controller(Windows 2000)",VT6420 VIAPDSK_VT4149_NT = "VIA ATA/ATAPI Host Controller(Windows NT4)",VT6420 # This section lists the files that should be copied if the user # selects a particular component option. # # <file_type> is one of driver, port, class, dll, hal, inf, or detect. # See below. # <source_disk> identifies where the file is to be copied from, and must # match en entry in the [Disks] section. # <filename> is the name of the file. This will be appended to the # directory specified for the disk in the [Disks] section to form the # full path of the file on the disk. #=======================================# [Files.scsi.VIAPDSK_VT4149_2003IA32] driver = d7, viapdsk.sys, viapdsk inf = d7, viapide.inf ## Cat file directive. It should be marked with non-digital signed driver #catalog = d7, viapdsk.cat [Files.scsi.VIAPDSK_VT4149_XP] driver = d1, viapdsk.sys, viapdsk #dll = d1, setupvia.dll inf = d1, viapide.inf ## Cat file directive. It should be marked with non-digital signed driver catalog = d1, viapdsk.cat [Files.scsi.VIAPDSK_VT4149_2K] driver = d2, viapdsk.sys, viapdsk #dll = d2, setupvia.dll inf = d2, viapide.inf ## Cat file directive. It should be marked with non-digital signed driver catalog = d2, viapdsk.cat [Files.scsi.VIAPDSK_VT4149_NT] driver = d3, viapdsk.sys, viapdsk inf = d3, viapide.inf [HardwareIds.scsi.VIAPDSK_VT4149_2003IA32] id = "PCI\VEN_1106&DEV_4149","viapdsk" [HardwareIds.scsi.VIAPDSK_VT4149_XP] id = "PCI\VEN_1106&DEV_4149","viapdsk" [HardwareIds.scsi.VIAPDSK_VT4149_2K] id = "PCI\VEN_1106&DEV_4149","viapdsk" #=======================================# [Files.scsi.VIARAID_VT3149_2003IA32] driver = d8, viasraid.sys, viasraid inf = d8, viasraid.inf ## Cat file directive. It should be marked with non-digital signed driver catalog = d8, viasraid.cat [Files.scsi.VIARAID_VT3149_XP] driver = d4, viasraid.sys, viasraid #dll = d4, setupvia.dll inf = d4, viasraid.inf ## Cat file directive. It should be marked with non-digital signed driver catalog = d4, viasraid.cat [Files.scsi.VIARAID_VT3149_2K] driver = d5, viasraid.sys, viasraid #dll = d5, setupvia.dll inf = d5, viasraid.inf ## Cat file directive. It should be marked with non-digital signed driver catalog = d5, viasraid.cat [Files.scsi.VIARAID_VT3149_NT] driver = d6, viasraid.sys, viasraid inf = d6, viasraid.inf [HardwareIds.scsi.VIARAID_VT3149_2003IA32] id = "PCI\VEN_1106&DEV_3149","viasraid" [HardwareIds.scsi.VIARAID_VT3149_XP] id = "PCI\VEN_1106&DEV_3149","viasraid" [HardwareIds.scsi.VIARAID_VT3149_2K] id = "PCI\VEN_1106&DEV_3149","viasraid" # This section specifies values to be set in the registry for # particular component options. Required values in the services\xxx # key are created automatically -- use this section to specify additional # keys to be created in services\xxx and values in services\xxx and # services\xxx\yyy. # # <key_name> is relative to the services node for this device. # If it is empty, then it refers to the services node. # If specified, the key is created first. # <value_name> specifies the value to be set within the key # <value_type> is a string like REG_DWORD. See below. # <value> specifies the actual value; its format depends on <value_type> [Config.VT6420] value = "", Tag, REG_DWORD, 1 #HP-Delete following line #value = "Parameters\PnpInterface", 5, REG_DWORD, 1 Looks like you will have to read through it and select the appropriate sections. It should be similar to doing the SiiG and Promise drivers.

Kukris, please take a look at this thread: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...ndpost&p=149897

It shouldn't matter which drive it is; it's the SATA chipset that you need to worry about. How about letting us know what motherboard and SATA controller you have?

If you use Riprep with a RIS server you have more flexibililty with computer naming. In this case you can specify some environment variables that get their values from Active Directory. I don't think sysprep is capable of anything more customised.

Use ComputerName=* to generate a random number appended to your OrgName value

After reading the various threads with respect to silently installing Firefox, this is what I've done and it works in both Windows 2000 and XP. We know that replacing the Firefox setup.exe with the Mozilla version works. So, download both the Mozilla 1.7 and Firefox 0.9.1 installer packages. First, run the Firefox installer but stop on the first setup screen. Go to your Documents and Settings directory and then the directory of the currently logged on user. In the Local settings\Temp directory will be the temporary directory with the unpacked setup files. Copy that temporary directory to your unattended install $OEM$\$1 structure where your other applications are. Now you can cancel the setup. Next, run the Mozilla installer. Stop at the first setup screen and go to the same location as above and look for the ns_tmp directory. Copy the setup.exe file from there to your copied Firefox install folder. Then edit the config.ini and change the run mode to silent: [General] ; Run Mode values: ; Normal - Shows all dialogs. Requires user input. ; Auto - Shows some dialogs, but none requiring user input. It will ; automatically install the product using default values. ; Silent - Show no dialogs at all. It will install product using default ; values. Run Mode=Silent Finally, add the required silent install switches (I use RunOnceEx): REG ADD %KEY%\060 /VE /D "Firefox 0.9.1" /f REG ADD %KEY%\060 /V 1 /D "%systemdrive%\install\Applications\Firefox\setup.exe -ms -ira" /f Total, sweet silent install! No messing around with scripts or repackaging the installer.

This is my manual method and it works without a hitch (after much trial and error, Googling and hints from this forum! ) Add the following line to your cmdlines.txt just before you call RunOnceEx.cmd ".\IE6\ie6setup.exe /q:a /r:n" This assumes that your ie6setup.exe file is in a sub-directory called IE6 in the root of $OEM$, i.e., the IE6 sub-directory is in the same directory as cmdlines.txt. I had previously downloaded only the Windows 2000 specific files for IE6 SP1 using the command line switches for ie6setup ie6setup.exe /c:"ie6wzd.exe /d /s:""#E" Copy the contents of the Windows Update Setup folder into your IE6 directory. This will install IE6 during the T-13 point during the GUI install. The advantage of doing it this way is that on the next reboot during GUIRunOnce or if you use the RunOnceEx method to install your apps, your reboot has been taken care of and then you can install and post IE6 SP1 patches. Because IE6 requires a second reboot those patches need to be installed after a second reboot. Just autologon twice in your winnt.sif file. During the first autologon I add a RunOnceEx key to the registry that will call a batch file to run the hotfixes. So, this is added during the first logon: SET KEY=HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnceEx REG ADD %KEY% /V TITLE /D "Installing Applications" /f REG ADD %KEY%\10 /VE /D "Installing post-IE6 hotfixes" /f REG ADD %KEY%\10 /V 1 /D "%systemdrive%\install\hotfixes\hotfixes.cmd" /f These are keys are added using my cleanup.cmd batch file at the end of the first logon. From what I've figured out these are the hotfixes you will need to add during the second login: cmdow @ /HID ECHO. ECHO Installing Q329115 update resolves the Certificate Validation Flaw Could Enable Identity Spoofing start /wait %systemdrive%\install\hotfixes\Q329115.EXE /Q /O /N /Z ECHO. ECHO Installing Q823559 Windows 2000 Security Patch (Buffer Overrun In HTML Converter Could Allow Code Execution) start /wait %systemdrive%\install\hotfixes\Q823559.EXE /Q /O /N /Z ECHO. ECHO Installing Q832894 Cumulative Update for Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1 start /wait %systemdrive%\install\hotfixes\Q832894.EXE /Q:A /R:N ECHO. ECHO Installing Q831167 Update for Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1 start /wait %systemdrive%\install\hotfixes\Q831167.EXE /Q:A /R:N ECHO. ECHO Installing Q837009 Cumulative Security Update for Outlook Express Service Pack 1 start /wait %systemdrive%\install\hotfixes\Q837009.EXE /Q:A /R:N shutdown.exe -r -f -t 60 -c "Windows 2000 will now restart in 1 minute..." RD /S /Q %systemdrive%\drivers\ RD /S /Q %systemdrive%\install\ EXIT It looks complicated at first, but if you follow the logic, then it makes quite a lot of sense. In summary this is what happens: T-13: install IE6 First autologon/RunOnceEx: IE6 components registered; require reboot Second autologon/RunOnceEx: IE6 hotfixes applied